Page 136 - A Dissertation for Doctor of Philosophy

Use of Simple and Imaginative Language

When Jesus preached, the people heard it gladly. 136 People were delighted since they

could comprehend his words and relate those words to their everyday life experience. Unlike

Jewish teachers at the synagogue, Jesus did not speak in the legalistic or professional

phraseology. Rather, he displayed originality in expressing his thoughts. 137 His language

abounded with simple, concrete word pictures of everyday life that sparkled with familiar images.

In this section, Jesus’ use of language will be examined in three ways: use of simple language,

use of word pictures including the employment of the concrete imagery and illustration from

everyday life, and use of figures of speech.

Use of People’s Language

Jesus did not use a “scholarly” or “technical language” to impress his audiences. 138

Rather, he employed “the word of a layman” in his preaching.” 139 Amos Wilder maintains

Jesus’ use of mundane language, saying:

The Bible gives almost no support to the idea of a special ‘holy language’, as, for example,
Latin in the piety or liturgy of the Church, or by analogy some supposed specially holy
translation of the Bible. Jesus taught in the living dialect of his time, Aramaic, not in the
language of the Scripture, Hebrew. 140

136
Mark 12:37.

137 Laymon, The Life and Teachings, 126.

138 Pheme Perkins, Jesus as Teacher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 38.

139
Amos N. Wilder, Early Christian Rhetoric: The Language of the Gospel (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), 9.

140
Ibid., 19.